


From the Mouths of Babes

by eternaleponine



Series: Clexathon 2016 [2]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Foster Care, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-04
Updated: 2016-12-04
Packaged: 2018-09-06 07:58:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8741560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eternaleponine/pseuds/eternaleponine
Summary: What if Lexa and Clarke met as children?  A modern AU where Lexa ends up in foster care, and one of the neighbors is one Clarke Griffin.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DreamsAreMyWords](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamsAreMyWords/gifts).



"Hey," Anya said, stretching her leg across the small space between their beds (too small, probably; the room really wasn't meant for two, and Anya hadn't been happy when she'd been told she would be sharing it, because she was older than all of the other kids and had had her own room up until now, but this was an emergency and she had to be understanding, and she'd been told not to let her resentment show but Lexa had heard everything she wasn't supposed to so she knew even if Anya didn't show it, which she didn't) to nudge Lexa with her foot. "Why don't you go outside and play or something?"

Lexa shrugged. It was the only answer she'd given to anything anyone had said to her in the past three days, even when she'd overheard one of the social workers ask another one if they thought maybe she was – lower voice to a whisper – _mentally disabled_? The doctors had tested her hearing, thinking maybe she was deaf and that's why she wasn't responding in an Age Appropriate Manner but she'd raised her hand to indicate that she heard the tones for every single one, so that obviously wasn't the issue. 

It apparently never occurred to them that she just didn't want to talk. It never occurred to them that maybe she knew that it was smarter, and safer, to watch and observe, figure out the lay of the land and where the potential threats are, and develop a plan of action before giving anything away. 

"Come on, kid," Anya said. "I know that you're in there. I see right through you. I know that you probably don't want to be here. _Nobody_ wants to be here, at least not at first, but I'm telling you, there are a lot worse places to be. Miss Becca is strict, but she'd fair, and she doesn't make up rules just to make up rules and then not tell you about them until you break them. She's never laid a hand on any of us, not once, and she doesn't bring home creepy guys or anything. Not that I would let them anywhere near you if she did." 

There was something fierce in Anya's voice, something low and growling like a cornered animal that Lexa didn't completely understand but that made her believe her when she said that she would protect Lexa if someone tried to do something to her. Not that she needed protecting. She could protect herself; she'd been taught all her life how to do that. But Anya didn't know that, probably. She didn't know that she hadn't grown up playing house or school, but war. Always war. Because you never knew. The end was coming, they were told, and they needed to be prepared for it.

Except apparently the government disagreed about that, because when they'd found out, found them, they'd split them all up and taken them all away, and she knew that she would probably never see her friends again. (Even though she wasn't supposed to think of them as friends, because in a world where only the strong survived, you didn't have friends, because if it came down to it, you had to choose your own life over everyone else's, always.) 

"Here's not a bad place," Anya continued. "So you better figure out how to at least pretend to be normal pretty quickly, or they might decide that you need to be somewhere else, and you don't want that. Trust me."

"Why are you even wasting your time?" one of the boys asked, shoving his way into the room without bothering to ask permission, and Lexa saw Anya bristle. "Haven't you figured out yet that the lights are on, but nobody's home?"

"Go eff yourself, Murphy," Anya said. "Miss Becca told me that it's _my_ responsibility to help her get acclimated. You can just butt the f— eff out, thanks."

"Oooh, I'm telling Miss Becca you said that," he threatened, voice singsong. 

"Said what?" Anya asked. "Eff? Because last I checked, that's just a letter of the alphabet. But I guess you wouldn't know that, would you, considering the fact that you're an illiterate cretin."

"I'm not fu—" He stopped himself before he could say the word.

Anya grinned, showing teeth. "Oooh," she mocked, "I'm _telling_."

He scowled back at her. "Yeah, well you said it first, and in front of the kid, too."

"Listen, s for brains. She's not _the kid_. Her name is Lexa, and she's not some little toddler who's going to parrot back everything you say in front of her. Go mind your own business, or I'll make sure that Miss Becca knows that you bribe the younger kids to do your chores when she's not looking. _We_ are going out."

Lexa watched as Anya stood up, and the kid she called Murphy but Miss Becca called John took a step back, trying to make it look like he wasn't retreating except he was. Anya leaned down to nudge her again, and this time she got up because she didn't want to give this ass-- _a-hole_ the satisfaction of getting to think he was right, even for a second. 

Anya headed straight for the door, keeping Lexa at her side so that the only option Murphy had was to flatten himself against the wall to let them pass as they headed for the stairs and outside.

Once the door was closed behind them, Anya flopped down in the hammock with a book. "Look," she said, pointing. "There's a girl right across the street who looks like she's around your age. Why don't you go say hello?" 

Lexa looked across the street where Anya was pointing, and it wasn't the house _directly_ across the street, but yes, she could see from here not one but two girls, maybe her age or maybe a little younger, out in the driveway of a bright white house, chunks of colored chalk scattered around them, drawing designs on the pavement. 

"Go on," Anya said. "I'll be right here if you need me." 

Lexa looked at her again, trying to decide if there was any reason to do as Anya asked... and then trying to decide if there was any reason not to. Finally she just gave in and walked across the street. A car came around the curve and honked as it swerved around her, and she just glared at it, even though she knew it was her fault because she'd failed to remember the new threats that came along with a world that wasn't insulated by miles and miles of trees in every direction. There were barely any trees at all here, and it made her feel exposed, because even though it made it easier to see potential threats approaching, it meant that there was also almost nowhere to hide.

She thought about walking right past the house with the girls in the driveway, but instead she lingered near the bushes that edged the property and listened. 

"That's not a unicorn!" the dark-haired girl with the red ribbon said. "Unicorns don't have wings. _Pegasuses_ have wings. Bellamy told me."

The other girl, with hair the color of sunshine and eyes the color of the sky, rolled her eyes like she was sick of hearing about Bellamy and all of the things that he told the other girl. "Well it's a _hybrid_ ," she said.

And now the other girl rolled her eyes. "A hybrid is a _car_ ," she said. "Not a unicornasus or whatever _that_ is."

"A hybrid is anything that combines two other things into one," Lexa said, stepping out from where she'd been hiding. Her voice was raspy from days of disuse, and she wasn't even sure why she had decided she had to get involved, except that she liked the drawing that the sunshine-and-sky girl had made and she didn't think it was fair for the other girl to be rude about it just because it wasn't _right_. "A hybrid car is called a hybrid because it's uses both gas and electric power. That's a hybrid because it's a unicorn and a Pegasus."

"Whatever," the dark-haired girl said. "I have to go home anyway."

"Okay," the blonde girl said. "See you later, Octavia-gator." She grinned. "Which would be a hybrid of you and an alligator."

The dark girl – Octavia – laughed. "After a while, Clarke-odile."

"Hey, that actually works!" Clarke said. "Bye!"

Octavia waved and headed down the street, leaving Lexa standing there watching Clarke, and Clarke watching Lexa, and neither of them knowing what to say. 

"I'm Clarke," the blonde finally said. "That was Octavia. Obviously." 

"Lexa," Lexa said. 

"Do you want to draw with me?" Lexa started to shrug, then shook her head, then nodded. Clarke looked at her, a little line forming where her eyebrows crinkled together in confusion. "So... yes?"

"Yes," Lexa said. 

"Okay. You can draw whatever you want, wherever you want. My parents don't mind. I mean, don't draw anything _rude_ , but you wouldn't do that, I bet. Only _boys_ do that." 

Which made Lexa wonder if maybe Clarke had had the misfortune of meeting John Murphy at some point. She sat down in a patch of shade, careful not to accidentally sit on and smudge any of the drawings already scattered across the very large concrete canvas. She found a green piece of chalk and began to draw trees, and more trees, and more trees, creating a forest that she wished she could fall into and disappear, but of course that wasn't possible. 

"So do you live at Miss Becca's?" Clarke asked after a few minutes. 

Lexa nodded, then realized that Clarke might not be looking at her. "Yes."

"I'm sorry," Clarke said. 

"Why?" Lexa looked at her, frowning, because Anya had said that it was a good place, and she'd actually been starting to trust Anya, at least a little, but maybe Clarke knew something that she didn't. 

"Oh," Clarke said. "Because my parents told me that the kids who live there have to because they have problems in their families so they can't stay with their parents, but then sometimes they get to go back to their parents so that's why sometimes kids don't live there for very long," she said. "So... I'm sorry if you have problems with your family."

"I don't have a family," Lexa said. "My parents are dead." That's what she'd been told, at least... or maybe she'd just always assumed it. That she was living where she was, with the people she was, because her parents weren't strong enough to survive. But maybe that was wrong. Maybe they'd given her up because they wanted her to have the chance to learn to be strong enough to survive when the end came, and they couldn't teach her, or maybe they'd just never wanted her in the first place. 

"Oh." Clarke got up and came closer, sitting down right next to her. "I'm sorry," she said, and then she put her arms around Lexa and hugged her, and Lexa didn't know what to do. "So is Miss Becca going to be your mom, then?" she asked, when she finally let go.

Lexa shrugged, because this time that was the only answer that she had. 

"Oh," Clarke said for a third time. "Well, Miss Becca seems really nice, so... probably she wouldn't be a bad mom to have. My dad sometimes goes over to help out with fixing things, even though she says he doesn't have to, but he says that that's what neighbors do, and why pay someone when he can do it for free? Then usually she sends us cookies or something which makes my mom grumble because they're not _healthy_ but then my dad gives her a _look_ and says that everything is healthy in moderation and I know that he's trying to make sure that I don't get all weird like some girls about food and how I can't have sugar or carbs or whatever because it will make me _fat_ , but I'm not like that anyway because my mom says I'm the healthiest kid she knows, and she knows a lot because she's a doctor, and those girls are boring anyway." 

Lexa blinked. She didn't think she'd ever heard someone say that many words all at once in her entire life, and practically without taking a breath. 

"Speaking of which," Clarke said, "do you want to come in for a snack?"

Lexa shook her head. "I can't."

Clarke looked at her, and then across and down the road, to where Anya was still in the hammock, and even though she was reading Lexa knew she was also watching. "Okay," she said. "I'll just bring the snack out, then." She bounced up, and came back a few minutes later with carrots and wedges of some flat bread and a mushy brown paste to dip them in. "Hummus," she said. "It's good."

It _was_ good, Lexa decided, and so was the lemonade that Clarke brought out, even though it made her face pucker and even though Clarke laughed when it did. "I know, right?" she asked, but it didn't seem like a question that needed an answer, so Lexa didn't say anything. 

"Hey," Clarke said, after they'd eaten. "What if we put a house in one of your trees?" 

"Why?" Lexa asked. 

"Because it would be a good secret hideout," Clarke said. "A place to go when we wanted to get away from everyone else. A secret fort for just us, and only anyone else if we invited them."

Lexa blinked, wondering how it was possible that they had so quickly become a 'we' when Clarke didn't know anything about her except her name and that she didn't have any parents. Was this how regular people acted toward one another? 

"Okay," she said finally. 

"Which one?" Clarke asked. 

Lexa considered, then pointed to one that was near the little stream she'd drawn meandering between the trunks. "Here," she said. 

Clarke leaned over and drew it in, and when she was done she smiled. "There," she said. "What do you think?"

"I wish it was real," Lexa said. 

"Maybe it could be," Clarke said. 

"What do you mean?"

Clarke stood up and held out her hand, and after a second's hesitation, Lexa took it and let Clarke help pull her up... and when Clarke didn't let go once she was standing, neither did she. Lexa followed her to the back yard, where there were several large trees that stood sentinel toward the back, forming what could never really be considered a forest, but it was the closest she'd seen since she'd been taken from the only home she'd ever known. "I know it's not far away from everything," she said, "but what about there?" She pointed up to one of the trees. "My dad always said it would be a good tree for a tree house."

Lexa just stared up for a long moment, her mind already filling in the details even as the world got blurry, and she had to blink hard until the tears went away again. "I might not be here," she said. "I might not stay."

"You will," Clarke said, as if she was some kind of authority on these things. "You were meant to be here. I know it."

"How?" Lexa asked. 

Clarke looked at her. "Because we were meant to know each other," she said, like it was the most logical explanation in the world.

"How do you know?" Lexa asked.

Clarke shrugged. "I just know," she said, squeezing Lexa's hand. "That's good enough for me."

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [DreamsAreMyWords](http://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamsAreMyWords/pseuds/DreamsAreMyWords) for the prompt. 
> 
> Want your own story? Send me a prompt! Email eternaleponine [at] gmail, Tumblr ironicsnowflake, or comment!


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